Stanley Kubrick: Visionary Filmmaker Collection (Blu-ray)

Collection of seven films from celebrated director Stanley Kubrick.

In 'Lolita' (1962), an adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel, Humbert Humbert (James Mason) is a fastidious, middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters) he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita (Sue Lyon), the woman's teenaged daughter. In fact, his passion for the girl becomes so overwhelming that he is willing to accept Charlotte's intimations of marriage just in order to be close to her daughter. Humbert then plots to spend more and more time alone with Lolita, but his pursuit of his obsession soon becomes such that it leaves all their lives damaged.

In '2001 - a Space Odyssey' (1968), at the dawn of mankind, a tribe of ape-like beings are visited on Earth by a large black monolith. Thousands of years later, in the year 2001, scientist Dr Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester) discovers a similar black monolith on the moon, which then emits a signal aimed at the planet Jupiter. A year later, astronauts David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) are en route to Jupiter to investigate the signal's destination and purpose. However, their mission comes under threat when the ship computer, HAL (voiced by Douglas Rain), seemingly develops a malfunction.

Kubrick's controversial crime drama 'A Clockwork Orange' (1971) supposedly triggered copycat violence on its initial release and, as a result, the director withdrew the film from circulation in Britain, keeping it suppressed right up to his death in 1999. The film follows sadistic punk Alex (Malcolm McDowell) as he takes his gang on a rape and murder spree, showing absolutely no mercy to any of his victims. When he is eventually captured, the authorities subject him to a series of experiments designed to rid him of his violent tendencies.

'Barry Lyndon' (1975) is based on the novel 'The Luck of Barry Lyndon' by William M. Thackeray. Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal) is an Irish country boy who falls in love with a well-to-do local girl (Gay Hamilton) and is subsequently tricked by her family into leaving town. Disillusioned with love, the brokenhearted youngster then embarks on an adventure which sees him serve in the Seven Years' War, earn a living as a professional gambler, and eventually move into the higher ranks of society when he meets and marries the beautiful Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson). However, despite the luck which has brought him such riches, it is this final move, the cynical choice to marry for social advancement rather than love, which brings about Barry's downfall.

In 'The Shining' (1980), adapted from the Stephen King shocker, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) takes a job as an off-season caretaker at the remote Overlook Hotel in Colorado in an attempt to seek solitude to write a novel. Eager to get started, Jack disregards warnings that the isolation drove a former caretaker mad, and moves into the massive resort with his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and son Danny (Danny Lloyd). But Danny has a supernatural gift which makes him aware of an evil lurking in the hotel, and sure enough, as winter storms cut the hotel off from civilisation, Jack gradually becomes murderously insane.

'Full Metal Jacket' (1987) details the dehumanizing effect of military combat, as experienced by a bunch of Vietnam conscripts under the training of the sadistic Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey). The second half of the film follows one of the recruits, Joker (Matthew Modine), onto the battlefield as he is thrown into the war at the height of the Tet offensive. The entire movie was shot on location in East London.

Finally, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman star as a married couple in 'Eyes Wide Shut' (1999), Kubrick's last film. One night, returning home from a party, Alice (Kidman) confesses that she still has fantasies about a sailor she once knew. William (Cruise) is shocked and jealous, and when he is later called away on business, he finds it impossible to return home, embarking instead on a journey into an illicit underworld of prostitution and sexual debauchery.